Tikhon Nikolaevich Khrennikov was born on June 10^th 1913 in the ancient Russian city of Elets. Nikolay Ivanovich, his father, had been a clerk working for local merchants; Varvara Vasilievna, his mother, had been a housewife. Tikhon was the youngest child in a large family with nine elder siblings.  The family lived in harmony and their modest income was always spent to cover kids’s education expenses. Elder brothers graduated from Moscow University. One of the brothers, Gleb, had a lovely singing voice – a lyrical tenor. He studied at Moscow Conservatoire and Moscow University and was expected to become a brilliant vocalist, but then the First World War broke out and Gleb volunteered. He fell in action in 1918.

Music was always a part of Khrennikov family. Everybody played guitar or mandolin. Besides, Tikhon had been singing in the church choir.  He started to play the piano at the age of nine. Two years later the boy became an apprentice of V.Agarkov - a musician, composer and gifted and fastidious music teacher, who had moved to Elets from Moscow. Mr. Agarkov had been an apprentice of Konstantin Igumnov - head of Moscow Conservatoire and creator of one of the largest piano schools in Russia. Tikhon took a great interest in these studies. Agarkov left Elets soon, but the acquaintance with the next teacher - Anna Fedorovna Vargunina - became crucial for the young musician.

The boy started to compose music quite soon after he had learned to play the piano. He composed his first opus – a piano etude - when he was thirteen. Tikhon came to Moscow in winter 1927-1928 to show his compositions to Mikhail Gnesin. The famous master took a liking to the talented boy and Tikhon returned home with a huge pile of printed music. A year later he finished 9 classes at school and entered Gnesin’s college. Nikolay Khrennikov gave his son two important advices before sending him to Moscow. The first one was: live your own life and let others do the same. The second was: never feel upset over your failures and do not be pleased at your success too much. Tikhon Khrennikov always followed these 2 principles. It seems that father’s instructions indeed formed the composer’s style of dealing with people and allowed him to earn love of those who surrounded him.  During his college years Tikhon studied piano with E.Gelman and composition with Mikhail Gnesin. Besides, his polyphonic studies with G.Litinsky became an important step on his way to professionalism. Before graduation Khrennikov started to compose his First Piano Concerto working with great certainty and ease. 

After graduating from Gnesin’s college in 1932 Khrennikov entered the second year of Moscow Conservatoire at the class of V.Shebalin. Great Henry Neuhaus, his piano teacher, sympathized with young musician. Tikhon also got acquainted with Leopold Godovsky who praised and supported him. By the end of the third grade Khrennikov had finished his piano concert and played it the examination. The same year he was offered a job in the Moscow Children’s Theatre run by Natalia Sats who became his close friend for a long time. She asked Khrennikov to compose a sound track for “Mick” - the antifascist play written by Nikolay Shestakov. This music got rare praises at the opening night.

The first public concert took place in 1933 in Voronezh where he had been invited by the famous conductor N.Anossov. Thus Tikhon Khrennikov learned what success was; but the same year 1933 brought him tragedy besides fame: this was the year his father died.  Khrennikov presented his First Symphony as a graduation work. He started to compose it during his fourth year of study. The symphony was performed in Great Hall of Moscow Conservatoire in 1935 and had a great success. The same Tikhon performed his concert together with A.Melik-Pashaev at the 2^nd International Festival of Music and Theatre in Leningrad. It was his first international performance. Tikhon Khrennikov’s First Symphony was then included in Leopold Stokovsky’s repertoire and was performed in the USA where it gained a lot of praise. Besides,  Eugene Ormandi also included it in his repertoire.  

Upon graduating from Moscow Conservatoire Tikhon Khrennikov continued to attend Shebalin’s class. Soon after opening night of the symphony the composer got a call from Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko who had ordered him a contemporary opera for his theatre. It was a great honor for the young musician. They met for a dinner, discussed the matter and agreed to work on a plot of the future piece together. Khrennikov was happy to get acquainted with the famous theatre director and to accept such an honorable offer. After a while they chose a novel Solitude written by Nikolay Virta. A well-known playwriter A.M.Fayko wrote a libretto. The work went on rather slowly. In the meantime Khrennikov (who got a nickname “Moscow Shostakovich” after the premiere of his symphony) received a new order from Vakhtangov theatre – to write music for the play Much Ado About Nothing. The performance starring such famous actors as R.Simonov, C.Mansurova and D.Dorliak had been premiered in autumn of 1936 with a tremendous success.  

The same year Tikhon Nikolaevich married Klara Arnoldovna Vaks, a journalist, head of press-centre in the Union of Composers. They first met at the dancing party through Aram Khachaturyan who was a close friend of Khrennikov’s family for his whole life.  1937 had been a year of both professional success and personal drama for composer. Two of his brothers – Nikolay and Boris – were arrested in Elets. Tikhon feverishly sought ways to save them, wrote to everybody in charge – and the miracle happened! He managed to arrange an open trial for Nikolay in Elets with a good lawyer from Moscow. A famous attorney Braudo laid bare all fake charges, and Nikolay was released from custody in the court. However, Boris had been judged by an ominous court of three and vanished in GULAG.  Khrennikov finished his opera In the Storm in 1939. The opening night went off with great success. The same year Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov attended the performance, which was a sign of the highest recognition.

After that Khrennikov composed music for the one of the first Soviet movie musical A Pig-tender and a Herdsman, which has been released soon after the World War II began. This bright musical has welcomed the peaceful life for millions - a life worth to return to through all hardships and challenges of war.  During the war Khrennikov, just as most composers, had been mainly creating patriotic and military songs. The most popular are Everybody for Fatherland, There Is a Little Town in the North, and The Parting. The last one inspired a creation of the short film entitled Come Back as a Victor. Besides, Khrennikov created his own “military” symphony. He had started to compose it before the war and later decided to leave its first part as it was. That’s why other parts written after 22^nd of June 1941 sounded like a war itself, breaking the peaceful life. 

 Natasha, the daughter of Tikhon and Klara Khrennikov, was born in the year 1940 and named after the main character of In the Storm opera. The family had been evacuated to Sverdlovsk together with the Red Army Theatre. Alexei Popov, the director of the theatre, offered Khrennikov to be in charge of music department and to compose a sound track for the play A Long Time Ago by A.Gladkov about the war with France in 1812. This optimistic music of Khrennikov continues to comfort hearts and souls of millions even nowadays. 1941-1945 years were very productive for the composer. Apart from many songs and the symphony he created music for the movie musical 6 p.m. After the War. Khrennikov visited front-line forces several times, performing concerts for soldiers. In May 1945 he entered Berlin together with Chuikov’s army and took part in the famous radio broadcasting at the half-destroyed German radio station, sending songs of victory throughout the world from the very heart of ruined fascism. Khrennikov was singing his most popular songs – Parting, March of Gunners and others – accompanying himself.  

After the war Tikhon Khrennikov had been involved in immense public activity when in 1948 Stalin had decided to appoint the composer as Union of Composers Secretary General. Khrennikov remained in this position for 43 years, till the collapse of USSR in 1991. He skillfully managed to combine these duties with the joy of creation. Besides, the composer was a member of the Supreme Soviet, a candidate to the Central Committee of Communist Party, vice-chairman of Lenin and State Prizes Committee, president of the Music department in All-Union Society of Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries, President of the Music department in the Soviet Association of Friendship and Cultural Contacts with Foreign Countries. In the years of Perestroika the composers voted for Khrennikov twice of their own free will – in 1986 and 1991. 

At the First Congress of Soviet composers which took place soon after Khrennikov had been elected as a chairman, he had to read his speech  written for this event in the Central Committee of the Communist Party, that started campaign against formalism in Soviet music. Avant-garde tendencies, retreat from melodic music basis and western decadence were subjected to criticism in this speech. Several famous composers were mentioned – like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturyan. However, no repressive measures followed for any of them. Composers mentioned in Khrennikov’s speech  continued to obtain honorary titles and prizes. Dmitry Shostakovich was awarded with the title of People’s Artist of Russian Federation in 1948 and two Stalin Prizes in 1950 and 1952. Sergey Prokofiev received Stalin Prize in 1951 and Lenin Prize in 1957 (posthumously). Their music was  performed very widely. Khrennikov had used all his power to save his colleagues from repressions all these years. Moreover, in 1958 Khrennikov convinced Chruschev  to cancel the 1948 Resolution of Central Committee.  

However, Khrennikov’s opera Frol Skobeev was criticized and forbidden in 1950. But Khrennikov applied to Stalin directly and won. The opera by  new title – No One’s Son-in-law had been performed in USSR and abroad and got wide recognition.  Premiere of  new opera  The Mother based on Maxim Gorky famous novel took place in 1957. However, the fifties turned out to be the least productive years in the composer’s life. The heavy burden of Composers Union leadership led to nervous exhaustion and illness. He was treated  in Barvikha Party health centre, where  had been sleepless for several weeks. Klara, his wife, organized his escape from this closed secure hospital and literally cured and save him. The composer got back to work only in the end of fifties. In 1959 he finished his First Violin Concerto. Famous Leonid Kogan edited the violin part of this opus and became its first performer. Next was a concerto for violoncello which was finished in 1964. Khrennikov dedicated it to his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who performed it at the opening night and then had been playing it at first-rate concert stages all over  the world. After the concert in Carnegie Hall he sent Khrennikov a triumphant telegram.  

In the beginning of the sixties Tikhon Khrennikov got the professor position at Moscow Conservatoire mostly by chance: the talented fourth grade student Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov convinced everybody that Khrennikov could be the best tutor for him. Khrennikov had been teaching at the principal world music college for more than 40 years.  The seventies had been the most creative years for the composer. He wrote his Second Piano Concerto, Second Violin Concerto and Third Symphony. Besides, Khrennikov started to work in ballet genre. At the request of Bolshoy Theatre he composed ballet Love For Love using his music for Much Ado About Nothing. Well-known tunes formed a basis for choreographic monologues, adagios and duets. He also composed a lot of new music fragments for this ballet.  New pieces written by the mature maestro bore the same qualities as his early works: purity and freshness of emotions, warm humor and slyness and lyrical emotions, an integral part of all Khrennikov’s music.  Since  January 30, 1976 Love For Love had (choreographer Vera Boccadoro) remained on the repertoire for almost twenty years. Such famous dancers as Nina Timofeeva, Yuri Vladimirov, Alexander Godunov, Liudmilla Semenyaka, Nadezhda Pavlova, Andris Liepa, Marina Leonova danced various parties in this ballet. It had been performed more than 250 times. Apart from Moscow Love For Love had been produced in other Soviet cities and abroad – in Iceland, Bulgaria, Poland and Yugoslavia.             The composer continued working in this genre and came back to the libretto of Long Time Ago ballet based on the play of A.Gladkov, that had been created ten years before by Oleg Vinogradov, a choreographer of the Kirov’s Theater in Leningrad. As Khrennikov recalled: “It was keeping on the line of Much Ado About Nothing (Love For Love) in ballet – the line of comical and lyrical performance. I have been always fascinated by ballet, but sometimes not satisfied with its kind of one-sided development – I mean tragic subjects of many ballets. I didn’t want to turn it down entirely, but always wished to see some festive, joyful and bright performances full of beauty and inspiration”.            

 The ballet Hussar Ballade appeared in Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad on April 3^rd 1979. A year after that it was produced in Bolshoy by the same choreographers – Oleg Vinogradov and Dmitry Bryantsev.  In the beginning of the eighties Khrennikov composed his Third Piano Concerto and Second Cello Concerto. Then he wrote a number of comic operas for Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow: Dorothea (based on The Duenna comedy by Sheridan); The Golden Calf (based on novel by Ilf and Petrov); and The Naked King based on play by Schwartz for Malyi Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Leningrad.        

     Later  the composer tried himself in chamber music and composed his first quartet in autumn 1988 and followed with the cello sonata. In 1989 he created music for three sonnets of Shakespeare. In 1993 Andrei Petrov, a choreographer and head of Kremlin Ballet, offered Khrennikov the idea of the ballet about Napoleon Bonaparte. Charming adagios which are kind of Khrennikov’s trademark adjoin with pompous ballroom scenes, battles and political episodes, philosophic and lyrical pieces. Ballet Napoleon Bonaparte was written sixteen years later after his first ballets in times of Perestroika and reforms, that turned the country into a wild outburst of permissiveness, corruption, violence and poverty. Dramatic and philosophical concept of this ballet was noticed by all critics. October 3^rd, 1995 Napoleon Bonaparte was presented to the public at Congress Palace in Kremlin.          

    The Composer’s Union was disbanded in 1991, together with collapse of the Soviet Union. During the lifetime of Union of Composers a lot of things had been done: rest houses for composers had been built in Ruza, Ivanovo, Sukhumi, Sortavale and many Soviet republics; the system of royalty payments had been put in order; musical pieces were being bought by the state; the mighty system of musical propaganda had been constructed. However, all this was destroyed and sold out after 1991. Khrennikov resided from the position of chairman. Some critics in their fight with totalitarian past tried to criticize Khrennikov for his speech back to 1947 and show him as a watchdog of Stalinism and dictatorship. Khrennikov withstood it with all possible serenity, courage and dignity. “The time will put everything in order, - he used to say. – My music will get back to the audience some time”. Other writers emphasized  Khrennikov’s wisdom and humanistic leadership, that helped all Soviet composers to avoid Stalin’s GULAG. They praised  for his unique melodic talent, which makes him the outstanding contemporary composer of world recognition.  

Khrennikov  remained the head of Tchaikovsky Competition Committee up to year 2004 with his professorship in Moscow Conservatoire it was the only public activity he left for himself. Buthe continued his concert tours. The composer was performing his Third Piano Concert in several Russian cities. He had to stop his public performances after a serious heart attack at the age of 85.  The composer was blessed with a bright and long life in music. His pieces form the musical portrait of the XXth century, always being young, strong and optimistic, sincere and inspirational, warm, humorous and energetic. Tikhon Khrennikov had never betrayed his ideals in life and art.          

   His favorite composers had always been Bach, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. His last will was to bury him at Elets…